We aim to integrate information, monitoring and enforcement costs into the choice of environmental policy instruments. We use a static partial equilibrium framework to study different combinations of regulatory instruments (taxes, standards…) and enforcement instruments (criminal fine,...

According to Becker (1968) it is best to use very high fines and low inspection probabilities to deter traffic accidents because inspection is costly. This paper uses a political economy model to analyse the choice of the fine and the inspection probability. There are two lobby groups: the...

According to Becker (1968) it is best to use very high fines and low inspection probabilities to deter traffic accidents because inspection is costly. This paper uses a political economy model to analyse the choice of the fine and the inspection probability. There are two lobby groups: the...

We analyze judicial policy lines concerning criminal environmental sanctioning using a unique European dataset of individual criminal cases, including case-specific information on offenses and offenders. We investigate policy choices made by criminal judges in lower courts as well as the...

This model explicitly incorporates the dynamic aspects of conservation programs with incomplete compliance and it allows landholders’ behavior to change over time. A distinction is made between initial and continuing compliance. We find that incomplete and instrument-specific enforcement can...

We investigate the influence of a judge’s objective function on the type of sanctions used for enforcing environmental standards. We focus on the difference between monetary and non-monetary penalties. Therefore, we examine the extent to which judges take social costs of sanctions into account...

This paper analyses current and alternative afforestation policy instruments in Flanders. First we select forest sites that maximize net social benefits given a constraint on the total area of new forests and then we select policy instruments that yield this optimal combination of sites. For...

Over time, inspection agencies gather information about firms that cause harmful externalities. This information may allow agencies to differentiate their monitoring strategies in the future, since inspections can be influenced by firms' past performance relative to other competitors in the...

We investigate whether environmental sanctions should increase with the degree of intentionality of the violation. To this end we develop a simple model which is used to make predictions concerning the effect of the degree of intentionality, the amount of illegal gain obtained and the harm...

The paper analyses the strategic environmental policy choices of governments for the car market. We consider two countries that each have a small number of car producers who sell cars at home and abroad, there are cross border pollution externalities and cross border R&D externalities. Each...